Course Code:
ENG116LIT
Course title: Literature before 1900
Scope:
10 ECTS credits
Teaching term:
Spring
Examination term: Spring
Learning outcome and competence
The students are to acquire a basic knowledge of and insight into literature written in Britain
and America prior to 1900, through a chronological study of literary history and not least
through a broad selection of texts.
Course content
The main focus will be working on texts, but there will also be some emphasis on literary
terminology and the study of various genres. The selection of texts will cover a long period
from 1485 to the 1880s, but with the emphasis on the 19th century. All the three main genres
(epic, lyrical and dramatic) are represented on the syllabus.
Organisation and work methods:
Teaching is offered in the form of lectures. In addition, students are expected to participate in
discussion groups.
Course requirements (must be approved in order to take the final examination)
The student must submit 1 essay which must be approved before the student may take the
final examination. Each student will be offered 1 response from a member of the teaching
staff during the writing process, on condition that the student submits his/her work in
accordance with the stipulated deadline.
Assessment and examination:
The course will be assessed on the basis of an individual 5-hour written examination with
grades awarded on a scale from A-F, where E is the lowest passing grade.
Evaluation and quality assurance:
The module is evaluated according to the VUC quality assurance system.
Syllabus:
(Subject to alteration up to semester opening)
Basic literature in use both in autumn and spring terms are the large anthologies:
The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th edition, 2000, volumes I and II
The Norton Anthology of American Literature, 6th edition, 2003, I and II
In addition all students must have a reference work for literary terms, e.g.
M.H.Abrams A Glossary of Literary Terms, (Harcourt and Brace, 1999)
or
Chris Baldick The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms (OxfordUniversity Press,
2001).
We read the following texts:
Novels:
Jane Austen Pride and PrejudiceOxford (World’s Classics 1998)
Charlotte Brontë Jane Eyre (Penguin Classics 1985)
Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol (Puffin Books, 1984) eller Hard Times.
Nathaniel Hawthorne The Scarlet Letter (in Norton Anthology of American Literature,1)
Mark Twain The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (in Norton Anthology of Am. Lit., 2)
Plays:
William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet (New Penguin Shakespeare, 1987)
Stories and shorter texts:
Thomas MaloryExtracts from Tales of King Arthur
Jonathan SwiftPart I of Gulliver’s Travels (in NE1)
Poetry:
William Blake The Tyger; The Lamb; The Sick Rose
Anne Bradstreet To My Dear and Loving Husband
Elizabeth Barrett Browning Sonnets from the Portuguese, 1 and 28
Robert Browning My Last Duchess
Emily Dickinson I Taste a Liquor Never Brewed
The Soul Selects Her Own Society
A Route of Evanescence
John Donne Batter My Heart
The Canonization
A Hymn to God the Father
George Herbert Easter Wings
Gerard Manley Hopkins Spring and Fall
Christina Rossetti A Birthday
William Shakespeare Sonnets 130 and 138
Percy Bysshe Shelley Ozymandias
Alfred, Lord Tennyson The Lady of Shalott
Walt WhitmanSong of Myself, 1 and 2
William Wordsworth Upon Westminster Bridge; Surprised by Joy
Module leader Marie Nedregotten Sørbø